Second Water Change

Yesterday, I performed my second water change. I replaced about 7 gallons which is roughly 10% of my tank capacity. It was more than 10% of the water since the tank contains live rock and sand. However, since I'm not Archimedes I didn't measure how much water was displaced when I added them so I really don't know how much water is in my tank. Oh well.

My piece of tongue coral isn't looking that good today. The polyps are extended only about halfway. Was it the water change? I let the salt mix in the new water for about a day and made sure the temperature and specific gravity of the new mix matched that of my tank. I'll give it another day and if the polyps are still not fully extended I'll move it to the top of a piece of live rock so it can get more light.

The red stringy algae is still present on the sandbed. I guess the technical term is red slime algae. I thought stringy sounded better than slime. What do I know? Anyway, it's still there in about the same quantity. It is also now showing up on the filter intake tubes. It hasn't overtaken my live rock or coral yet so I'm not overly concerned. I just need to keep an eye on it.

The fish, crabs and shrimp are looking great. I still haven't seen both peppermint shrimp together yet since the day I bought them. So I still don't know if I have lost one.

My bubble algae appears to be spreading, albeit slowly. The emerald crab I added to control it doesn't seem to care about it. He goes for the hair algae instead. Not only does he not touch the bubble algae, it turns out that he is missing his right claw. He was this way when I bought him. I guess I should have taken a closer look at what I was paying for. Doesn't he realize that the $0.89 hermit crabs were bought to eat the hair algae. Somebody needs to tell him I paid $10 for a hairy bubble algae eater not a hair algae eater.